Another birth announcement! Baby Luana 9.30.17

I knew there were going to be a lot of babies this fall, and here they come! Baby Luana was born at 12:50p on Saturday September 30, 2017. She's 8# of pure love!

Augusta and Jonathan welcomed their first labor with open hearts and open minds. They hired a homebirth midwife and me as their doula way back in their first trimester of pregnancy. Throughout their pregnancy I got to know them during our prenatal visits and our 4-week Birthing From Within childbirth class. We were all ready for the big day and knew how to support Augusta based on her preferences. They basically wanted as natural of an experience as possible.

*************************

Enter the birth fairy!

*************************

By now you know that when I say that it's because that darn fairy decided to throw her own preferences into the labor.

After roughly 24 hours of contractions, and 36 hours of being awake, Augusta was strongly considering transferring to the hospital due to sheer exhaustion and a strong desire for pain relief. We had many conversations about transferring and yet kept trying new things to stay true to the couple's birth preferences, including repositioning baby via Spinning Babies principles, many emotional releases, periods of physical rest balanced with periods of activity, and everything the midwife and I could think of to encourage labor's progression. In the end, Augusta's entire birth team honored her desire for transfer and we packed up and headed to cross a new threshold, into more of an unknown for the couple, into the hospital. I grabbed Augusta's birth prayer flags, affirmations, strength stones and pictures; if we couldn't have a baby at home, we'd bring the homebirth with us!

The emotional details of the story are Augusta's to share. Hers and her husband's spirits are full of vitality and energy, making it easy to spend their 40 hour labor with them. Their birth was obviously not the textbook birth that we read about, but more representative of what birth CAN look like; bringing them further than where they anticipated they'd have to go in terms of length of labor, length of being awake, and intensity of contractions as well as further into the depths of their own coping and resiliency. They were required to draw upon their coping skills, form some new ones on the fly, and required to do the "next best thing" in moments of uncertainty. They worked together and did whatever it took to birth their sweet daughter, while still staying true to their deepest selves and answering their own deepest question.

Now they're on the other side of the threshold, marking the beginning of their return from the innermost rings of their labyrinth. Join me in blanketing the new family in peace and strength, and in welcoming their baby girl to the world!

With love,

Chris